Biosensor for metal ions

Abstract: A biosensor which comprises a biochemical capable of producing a biochemical reaction in the presence of metal ions and a transducer arranged to detect a transducible output agent produced directly or indirectly by the reaction produced by the biochemical in the presence of metal ions characterised in that the biochemical comprises an enzyme which is a reductase for the metal to be detected. The said metal ions may be selected from mercury, chromium, arsenic, technetium, copper, silver, gold, selenium, vanadium, molybdenum and uranium. The reductase may be employed with co-enzymes in a biochemical chain reaction, eg the nicotinamide co-enzyme NADPH and the light emitting co-enzyme luciferase.

Description: The present invention relates to biosensors and more particularly to biosensors for detecting metal, especially heavy metal, ions. In one known form of bionsensor described in European Patent No 263948, a reactive biochemical component in the form of a peptide from the group of phytochelatines is immobilised on a transducer. On contact with aqueous solutions of heavy metal ions, complexes with the phytochelatin lead to a change in the transducer output and hence provide a rapid analysis of heavy metal ions. However, detection in this way is not specific to individual metal species and furthermore when the peptide combines with the heavy metal from the complex formed, eg if it is necessary to make further measurements using the peptide. In JP-A-05 023 198, a method of determining mercury levels is described in which a solution containing mercury ions is contacted with a mercury ion reductase enzyme and NADPH. The mercury ions are reduced to metallic mercury and the NADPH is simultaneously oxidised to NADP + . The change in concentration of NADPH to NADP + is monitored directly by changes in the fluorescence of the sample obtained by irradiating the NADP + with light. However, as a result of its single stage process, that method requires reagent addition to maintain NADPH, which is expensive, and it involves a relatively complex piece of apparatus with sample modification before hand by addition of mercapto compounds and detection at a separation location. In EP-A-0 007 476.there is described a method of determining NADPH in a clinical system. The article in Environmental Science and Technology vol. 25, no. 2, 1991 pp. 302-305 discloses a well-known process for degrading organo mercurials for the detection of mercury in biological samples. The purpose of the present invention is to provide an improved biosensor in which these problems are avoided. According to a first aspect of the present invention there is provided a biosensor for detecting ions of a metal capable of being reduced by a metal reductase enzyme, the biosensor comprising a transducer and an enzyme composition comprising a metal reductase enzyme and a first co-enzyme having a reduced state and an oxidised state and which is converted from its reduced state to its oxidised state by the reduction of metal ions by said metal reductase enzyme, characterised in that the enzyme composition comprising the metal reductase enzyme and first co-enzyme is immobilised; and the biosensor also comprises one or more other co-enzymes in a co-enzyme chemical chain, the one or more other co-enzymes producing a signal, the signal being detected by the transducer. According to a second aspect of the present invention there is provided a method of detecting metal ions, the method comprising exposing the metal ions to a biosensor according to the first aspect of the present invention. The metal ions detected in accordance with the present invention may be ions of mercury, chromium, arsenic, technetium, copper, silver gold, selenium, vanadium, molybdenum or uranium. Reductase enzymes for the biochemical reduction of each of these metal species are known per se from the literature. The metal species to be detected may be present in a given sample, eg aqueous solution, to be investigated as simple metal ions or as compounds or complexes, eg organometallics. Where the metal species to be detected is present as a compound or complex it may be desirable to employ another chemical or biochemical agent, eg an enzyne, to convert the compound or complex into its simple metal ion state so that it may be detected by the reductase enzyme. For example, organo-mercurial lyase may be employed to convert mercury organometallics to simple mercuric ions which may be detected by mercuric reductase. In contrast with the prior art technique described 9in the aforementioned EP specification the present invention allows metal ion detection which can be highly specific to the metal species of interest. Thus, for example, mercuric reductase is highly specific to the presence of mercuric ions. Furthermore, the metal obtained from the reduction process involving use of the reductase enzyme can be separated, concentrated and if necessary recycled from the medium in which it is originally present. The biosensor in accordance with the first aspect of the present invention may need to employ together with the metal reductase a co-enzyme which is an electron source for the metal ion reduction process. The co-enzyme may itself produce or may produce via one or more other co-enzymes in a co-enzyme chemical chain a signal which may be detected by the transducer. The reductase may be employed together with the nicotinamide enzyme NADPH as a co-enzyme which is oxidised to NADP + by the reduction of the metal species to be detected, eg Hg(II) to Hg (0) by mercuric reductase. The production of NADP + may be detected by oxidation of a further reductant, the oxidation thereby producing directly or by inducing the one or more further oxidation-reduction reactions, one of the output agents produced above. Examples of enzyme-induced oxidation-reduction chains involving the use of reductase and NADPH are given below. The transducer may comprise a detector which detects a transducible output agent produced in a reaction involving a chemical change in a co-enzyme associated with the reductase or a co-enzyme thereof and brought about directly or indirectly by the reduction produced by the reductase. The said output agent may comprise for example photons which may be detected by a known photodetector, eg a luminometer. Alternatively, the output agent may comprise electrons which may be detected by a known amperometric arrangement comprising an electron sensitive electrode. The output agent could alternatively comprise protons, ions, heat or mass each of which may be continuously sensed as produced in real time. Where the reductase is mercuric reductase it may be employed together with the nicotinamide enzyme NADPH as a co-enzyme which is oxidised to NADP + by the reduction of Hg(II) to Hg(0) by mercuric reductase. The production of NADP + may be detected by oxidation of a further reductant the oxidation thereby producing directly or by inducing of further oxidation-reduction reactions one of the output agents produced above. Examples of enzyme induced oxidation-reduction chains involving the use of mercuric reductase and NADPH are given below. Sources of mercuric lyase and mercuric reductase for the detection of mercury in the manner described above are known. However, mercuric lyase and reductase may be made by a molecular cloning technique in which DNA fragments encoding the lyase and reductase genes are inserted in vitro into cloning vector molecules. The recombinant mercuric lyase and reductase clones are isolated and subjected to physical and functional characterisation with a series of subcloning procedures. Finally, the cloning entails the incorporation of transcriptional and translational signals, since the cloned coding sequences of mercuric lyase and mercuric reductase should have strong endogenous transcriptional and translational signals appropriate to the host. The biosensor of the first aspect of the present invention with its specificity for given metal ions has many potential applications for the detection of any of the metals having a suitable reductase enzyme, eg those specified above. Mercury for instance is one of the more toxic metals present in significant quantities in the environment and is desirable to be able to detect accurately in many situations. Mercury is toxic to organisms even at very low concentrations, and unlike many of the other heavy metals, has no known beneficial biological function. Metallic mercury is somewhat less reactive with biological systems than the ionic or organic forms. In higher concentrations, mercury is biocidal, whilst lower concentrations of mercuric ions are mutagenic and teratogenic. Increases of several thousand-fold in the concentration of Hg 2+ ions above background levels are attributable to the use of mercurial fungicides in papermaking and agriculture, mercury catalysts in industry, and due to the use of disinfectants in hospitals. In the chloroalkali industry alone, over 15g of mercury in the form of mercuric ion may be lost to the environment for every ton of chlorine produced. The most common inorganic mercuric salt is HgS, comprising up to 7% mercury by weight of the ore, red cinnabar. Some 10 10 tons of rock (average 80 µg Hg/kg) are weathered globally each year releasing 800 tons of Hg(II) into the environment; the oceanic reservoir of mercury is estimated at 200 million tons. The dissolved Hg(II) concentration in water typically ranges from 0.03 to 2.0 µg/litre (ie, up to 10 -8 M). Mercury naturally exists in the environment predominantly as methyl mercury, arising from biomethylation of mercuric ions via methyl B 12 in sewage and sediments. Aryl mercurials are industrial contaminants, for example from the paper industry. These organomercurial compounds are toxic partly due to their ligation to thiol groups in proteins and partly due to their lipophilicity which allows them to readily pass through biological membranes, and leads to their accumulation in the food chain. Methyl mercury is 50 to 100 times more toxic than inorganic Hg 2+ and resulted in human poisonings at Minimata and Niigata in Japan in the 1950's from ingestion of seafood containing methylmercuric compounds. Later, in Iraq, similar poisonings were attributed to the use of flour treated with alkylmercury fungicides. According to one particular form of the present invention there is provided a method of detecting a metal species of interest, the method comprising exposing to the ions of the species to be detected a biosensor as in the first aspect thereby causing the reductase enzyme to induce a reduction of the metal species and thereby produce by oxidation of the co-enzyme an output of photons, and detecting the output photons by a photodetector. The said co-enzyme may itself produce the said photons or these may be produced via one or more other co-enzymes acting in a co-enzyme bio-chemical chain. The said photons may be produced by the enzyme luciferase. This may be employed in a biochemical chain reaction together with NADPH for example in the manner described below. The reductases in the said particular form of the present invention may conveniently be employed together with the nicotinamide enzyme NADPH as a co-enzyme which is oxidised to NADP + by the reduction of metal ions by the reductase. The production of NADP + may be detected by oxidation of a further reductant, the oxidation thereby producing directly, or by inducing of further oxidation-reduction reactions, the said output photons. For example, the production of NADP + may be detected by the oxidation of an alcohol, eg a primary or secondary alcohol, eg an aliphatic alcohol such as hexanol or octanol, to its corresponding aldehyde, eg in the presence of an alcohol dehydrogenase, eg TADH which is obtained from Thermoanaerobium brockii . The aldehyde so produced may be detected by reaction with reduced flavin FMNH 2 in the presence of oxygen together with the enzyme luciferase to catalyse the reaction. Luciferase may be obtained from Vibrio harveyi, and is commercially available. It is very sensitive to the presence of aldehyde and can detect concentrations as low as pmol quantities providing light emission from the reaction it catalyses. The intensity of emitted light provides a measure of the NADP + converted to NADPH which in turn provides a measure of metal ion concentration present. Examples of such reaction chains are illustrated below. In the biosensor according to the first aspect of the present invention it is desirable to immobilise and stabilise the biochemical agent(s) in close proximity to the transducer so that the enzymes remain active for long periods (eg months or years) and are not lost from the sensor. As in the prior art, immobilisation may be achieved by adsorption on an organic or inorganic carrier, physical inclusion in a gel, behind a semi-permeable membrane, cross-linking by bifunctional or multifunctional reagents or covalent bonding to the transducer either directly or using a linker. Where the transducer comprises an electrode, the electrode may for example comprise tungsten or glassy carbon or discs or wires or metal printed onto plastics or alumina substrates. The biochemical may in suitable cases be deposited, eg by screen printing onto the electrode. Embodiments of the present invention will be described by way of example with reference to the accompanying drawings, in which: Figure 1 is a cross-sectional end view of a biosensor arrangement embodying the present invention; Figure 2 is a side view of another biosensor arrangement embodying the present invention; Figure 3 is a side view of an alternative biosensor arrangement embodying the present invention. Figures 4 to 7 are diagrammatic representations of biochemical reactions which may be employed in biosensors embodying the present invention. As shown in Figure 1 a biosensor comprises an immobilised and stabilised enzyme layer 1 incorporating a metal reductase deposited on (the underside of) an electrode 2 providing a substrate therefor and a semi-permeable membrane 3 covers the layer 1. The layer 1 in use contacts via the membrane 3 a sample of aqueous solution possibly containing the metal ions required to be detected. By a series of biochemical reactions in one of the ways described hereinafter metal ions are reduced to metal by the layer 1 and electrons are produced as a result, the number of electrons produced being a measure of the concentration of the metal ions. The electrode 2 is connected (not shown) to a potentiostat which in turn provides an output voltage signal to a display (not shown) the magnitude of the signal being a measure of the detected metal ion concentration. As shown in Figure 2, another biosensor arrangement comprises an immobilised and stabilised enzyme layer 11 incorporating a reductase which is coated with a semi-permeable membrane 13 in a sample 15 of an aqueous solution to be investigated held in a vessel 17. A fibre-optic cable 19 is fitted via a ferrule 21 to make contact at one of its ends with the layer 11 the other end of the cable 19 being connected to a photodetector 23 incorporated within a luminometer 25. Outputs from the photodetector 23 are processed by an electronics unit 27 within the luminometer 25 and output signals are visually indicated on a display 29. In use of the arrangement shown in Figure 2, metal ions to be detected in the sample 15 are reduced in one of the ways described herein by the enzymes in the layer 11 and photons are produced by an appropriate series of chemical reactions, the number of photons being a measure of the concentration of the metal ions present. The photons are detected by the photodetector 23 via the cable 19 and the output of the photodetector is employed to operate the display 29 to give an indication of the level of the concentration of metal ions detected. The arrangement shown in Figure 3 is similar to that shown in Figure 2 except that the immobilised enzyme layer forms part of the luminometer indicated in Figure 2 by numeral 30 and so no fibre-optic cable is required between the two. Thus, in Figure 3, metal ions in a sample 31 are converted by a stabilised and immobilised enzyme layer 33 with which they make contact via a semi-permeable membrane 35 and resulting photons generated in the layer 33 are detected directly by a photodetector 37 adjacent to the layer 33 which via an electronics unit 39 provides an output signal for indication on a display 41. Examples of immobilised enzyme layers for use in the above embodiments will now be described. In each of the following examples it is assumed that metal ions already exist. Other enzymes may be required to break down complex or compound metal species to metal ions to begin the process. For example, mercuric lyase may be used in conjunction with mercuric reductase to convert organomercurials into simple mercuric ions where it is required to detect mercury. Example 1 : Diaphorase/methylviologen (MB) coupled system This example is illustrated in Figure 4. The reductase is employed together with NADPH to detect metal ions in a given sample. The reductase brings about the reduction of metal ions and the enzyme NADPH is concomitantly oxidised to NADP + . This oxidised product is re-reduced to NADPH by diaphorase from Clostridium kluyveri and the one-electron reductant (MV + ) of methylviologen (MV2 + ). Electrons released from the methylviologen oxidation are employed to indicate the concentration of metal ions present, eg in the manner described with reference to Figure 1. Example 2 : Peroxide coupled system This example is illustrated in Figure 5. In this case the metal reductase again reduces the metal ions to be detected and NADPH is oxidised to NADP + . The oxidised co-enzyme NADP + is re-reduced enzymically with L-glutamate dehydrogenase (eg from bovine liver), glutamate-pyruvate transaminase (eg from pig heart) and pyruvate oxidase (eg from Pediococcus spp ). The product is H 2 O 2 as illustrated in Figure 5 and the concentration of this product may be measured directly, eg on a platinum electrode at 0.7V or via a mediatorless peroxidase electrode using a fungal peroxidase obtained from Arthromyces ramosus for the oxidation of H 2 O 2 in a phosphate buffer solution at pH 7.0. The electrode and enzyme layer may be arranged as shown in Figure 1. Example 3 : Luciferase bioluminescent coupled system involving octanol This example is illustrated in Figure 6. In this case the reductase reduces the metal ions to be detected and NADPH is again oxidised to NADP+. This oxidised product is re-reduced by the oxidation of octanol to octanal brought about by the co-enzyme alcohol dehydrogenase, e.g. obtained from the commercially available Thermoanaerobium brockii . The alcohol dehydrogenase is represented in Figure 6 by TADH. The octanal is reacted with reduced flavin, FMHN 2 , in the presence of oxygen and catalysed by luciferase, LUC and the products octanoic acid, FMN oxidoreductase and water are produced as illustrated in Figure 6 and light is caused to be generated and this may be detected in the manner described with reference to Figure 2 or Figure 3. As noted above, bioluminescent biosensors promise high specificity due to the enzymic reaction and a sensitivity sufficient to register quanta of light. Luciferase is preferably the enzyme responsible for the light-emitting reaction of luminous bacteria and may be employed as illustrated in Figure 6 to catalyse the reaction of molecular oxygen with reduced flavin and aliphatic aldehyde to form long-lived intermediates whose breakdown provides energy to give light emission with reasonably high quantum yield (~10%), as follows: FMNH 2 + RCHO + O 2 → FMN + RCOOH + H 2 O + hv RCHO represents the aliphatic aldehyde and hv represents light. The reduced flavin is generated in situ by specific NAD(P)H : FMN oxidoreductases NAD(P)H + FMN + H + → NAD(P) + FMNH 2 and thereby coupled in with the target system via the NADP + dependent alcohol dehydrogenase. Example 2: Luciferase bioluminescent coupled system for nitrite reduction This example is illustrated in Figure 7. The process is carried out in a manner similar to that illustrated in Figure 6 except that in this case the re-reduction of NADP + is brought about by the oxidation of decanol to decanal by the co-enzyme dehydrogenase, eg obtained from the commercially available Thermoanaerobium brockii.

Claims: A biosensor for detecting ions of a metal capable of being reduced by a metal reductase enzyme, the biosensor comprising a transducer and an enzyme composition comprising a metal reductase enzyme and a first co-enzyme having a reduced state and an oxidised state and which is converted from its reduced state to its oxidised state by the reduction of metal ions by said metal reductase enzyme, characterised in that the enzyme composition comprising the metal reductase enzyme and first co-enzyme is immobilised; and the biosensor also comprises one or more other co-enzymes in a co-enzyme chemical chain, the one or more other co-enzymes producing a signal, the signal being detected by the transducer. A biosensor as claimed in claim 1 wherein said metal ions are selected from the group consisting of mercury, chromium, arsenic, technetium, copper, silver, gold, selenium, vanadium, molybdenum and uranium. A biosensor as claimed in claim 1 or claim 2 wherein the metal ions to be detected are present as a complex or a compound and the biosensor further includes a chemical or biochemical agent to convert the complex or compound into its simple metal ion state so that it may be detected by the metal reductase enzyme. A biosensor as claimed in claim 3 wherein the metal reductase enzyme is mercury reductase and the biochemical agent is organo-mercurial lyase so as to provide mercuric ions which may then be detected by the metal reductase enzyme. A biosensor as claimed in any one of the preceding claims wherein the signal comprises photons, electrons, protons, ions, heat or mass each of which may be continuously sensed as produced in real time by the detecting means. A biosensor as claimed in any one of the preceding claims wherein first co-enzyme is NADPH in its reduced state and NADP + in its oxidised state. A biosensor as claim in claim 6 wherein the NADP + is re-reduced to NADPH in the presence of one electron reductant methylviologen and diaphorase, the methylviologen reductant being further oxidised, the electrons released from the methylviologen reductant oxidation being employed to indicate the concentration of metal ions present. A biosensor as claimed in claim 7 wherein the reduction of NADP + to NADPH is effected by diaphorase. A biosensor as claimed in any one of claims 1 to 6 wherein the NADP + is reduced to NADPH enzymatically by a composition producing H 2 O 2 consisting of L-glutamate dehydrogenase, glutamate-pyruvate transaminase and pyruvate oxidase, and the concentration is measured directly using an electrode. A biosensor as claimed in any of claims 1 to 6 wherein the one or more other co-enzymes is alcohol deydrogenase. A biosensor as claimed in claim 10 wherein the one or more other co-enzyme oxidises alcohol to aldehyde, luciferase being employed to catalyse oxidation of the aldehyde. A biosensor as claimed in claim 11 wherein the luciferase generates photons and said means for detecting the extent of oxidation comprising a photodetector. A biosensor as claimed in claim 11 or claim 12 wherein the oxidation of aldehyde is provided by a reaction of the aldehyde with reduced flavin in the presence of oxygen, together with the luciferase. A method of detecting metal ions, the method comprising exposing the metal ions to a biosensor as claimed in any one of the preceding claims.

Inventors: BRUCE NEIL CHARLES, ECCLES HARRY, GARNHAM GEOFFREY W, LOWE CHRISTOPHER ROBIN, BRUCE, NEIL CHARLES, ECCLES, HARRY, GARNHAM, GEOFFREY W., LOWE, CHRISTOPHER ROBIN
Applicants: BRITISH NUCLEAR FUELS PLC
Application year: 1994
Main classification: C12M1
IPC codes: C12Q1, G01N27